Victory205

Leave the switch alone unless the PCL directs you to actuate it in the event of a hydraulic leak. You are correct in that it isolates the system to prevent battle damage from losing all fluids in the combined system. When the gear handle is moved to the down position, a physical lever moves the switch to the normal position. In reality, the bi-directional pump is there to provide hydraulic power to the opposite system in case of engine failures. Every hydraulic failure I ever had, resulted in the loss of fluid, meaning the bi-di or "PTU" in the airliners, didn't salvage the opposite system. The pilot could also inadvertently flip that switch when raising the gear after a violent cat shot at night, causing the gear to fail to retract, whereupon a wingman stated that "the gear pins were in, with two foot long red flags flying in the airstream", which is virtually impossible on a cat shot since about 80 people look at the jet before a carrier launch, thereby causing the pilot to dump fuel, recover and have the flight deck Chief say, "what are you doing back here?". "Well, my test pilot Pax River bad assed wingman said that the gear pins were in!" "No they weren't, everything was fine"... Oh, thinking carefully, "Guess I must have hit the switch...but we have a real problem because my Phd genius wingman is still up there flying around, unable to see because he is blind" I heard that happened once...

AFAIK, there were only two carriers with their islands to port, Hiryu and Akagi (both sunk during the battle of Midway). Supposedly, the Japanese wanted to steam the carriers in close proximity for AA protection, while allowing flight operations using opposite patterns to deconflict, and allow for closer ship spacing. Why the standard pattern is to the left is supposed to be due to engine torque, but I'm not convinced. Additionally, most pilots with a center mounted control stick are more comfortable turning to the left, since their hand is essentially on the right side of the stick, and pushes rather than pulls. Most pilots, find that it is easer to fly formation looking over your throttle hand than your stick hand, and even the Blue Angels thought that flying the left wing was more difficult than the right wing. How that translates to side sticks is beyond me. Pilots when called to "break", also have a tendency to break left, all things being equal. I thought that one had merit.

Pick up your balls, and get back in the fight... ;)

Keeping with the spirit of investigation and learning. Here's something for you all to try, when you have the chance- Fly the Case I pattern with right turns instead of left. See what you think about having the angled deck aligned 9 degrees to the pattern side does to your approach. Is it easier, harder, or just weird?

So Heatblur got the F14A right! The throttles also require a larger range of movement to manage thrust. It makes fine adjustment easier, but requires different technique. That is awesome modeling, and the geniuses had it that way out of the box.

If you want to learn, and see how good you are, then the answer is to fly 1v1 against similar F14’s. The rest is Call of Duty level nonsense, not worthy of your time. My involvement in this emanates from a desire to preserve the history of the aircraft, meaning duplicating it as it was, so others can experience the good and the bad. Otherwise, it’s just a game, and a waste of time.

Are you gents familiar with rolling G limits? Do you know about “The Staple” and the delamination re-works the older blocks went through? For all the boasting about “Grumman engineers” that some pilots made, those same Grumman engineers provided an over G schedule that applied to airframe life limits and also governed inspections. I assume that all of this drama is directed because some of you want to dominate while playing on online servers?

No, it’s the same. I’m not having that issue, and have tested the turn with tanks at max trap weight at the ~5000 MSL elevation of Tonopah. Will have another look for you though. The myriad of handling updates to get the sim closer to the aircraft have made both the A and B easier to land. It ought to feel better to you.

You don’t seem to understand the maneuver flap envelope or how they function and what causes them to break at all...

Yes they did, almost always inadvertently, usually an over speed on takeoff. They also broke things, especially the flaps, and if while a student in training with an instructor on board, they received “downs” and suffered the consequences for their stupidity. The flaps locked out and broke torque tubes, even when operating within the flight envelope. I pulled 8.2 G’s inadvertently while at Topgun. It broke the maneuvering flaps and eventually, an ECS heat exchanger that grounded the aircraft until it was replaced. My wingman also broke his auto wing sweep system due to an over G. You don’t hear these geniuses mention the aftermath of their over G exploits. Full flaps were typically only used in a flat scissors, well within the structural envelope, at approx one G and below 150 KIAS. The torque tubes used a splined shaft to account for wing bending, and operating it under massive G caused failures. Reversing direction was tough on it as well, and the greater the extension, the greater the load on the splines and the shafts. Using the flap handle and ending up with locked out flaps, meaning the wings couldn’t sweep limiting acceleration and speed in combat is a stupid place to be. Must say, I had never heard the story of Dale’s panicked SAM break, where upon he over stressed and departed the aircraft, stalled an engine (gee, I wonder if the MCB CB was pulled?), and ended up single engine, out of airspeed and ideas over Baghdad at night in the AAA envelope. That takes talent that most don’t possess.

What you see in the sim is normal.

It’s normal and is exacerbated by pilot technique.

Every time you bring up glove vanes, a puppy dies... They aren’t “useless”, they just enhance turn rate in a flight regime that is rare. They do look cool, but not at the expense of cute, little puppies. You got the glove vanes to extend by sweeping the wings aft using the throttle switch, then going to bomb mode.

They functioned just fine during the 1987 Med Cruise. They functioned well into the 1990’s too. However, there is no reason to add them to the module. I’m so sick of discussing them that that’s all I’m going to say. ;)

Amazing how snortie boy was able to pull those CB’s from the front cockpit...

FWIW, the “whisper number” was plus 30% at .9 IMN for the TF 30’s. More like a total in the 44,000 pound range. The 34,000 static thrust was correct. It was in the J79 range static. I never saw any empirical data for the ram increase, but plus 56,000 seems very high given the actual sustained climb angles attainable in the A. Do you have anything that you can put your hands on? What kind of simulator are you referencing?

On occasion, it would get caught in the IFR probe door during ground checks, and the pilot and plane captain would use deft timing and keen rope throwing dynamics to get it out.

Right then left.

I knew this was going to happen when the anhedral was adjusted on the stabs.... ;)

The F14A nozzles are powered by an AB hydraulic pump that uses AB fuel to actuate the nozzles. It's a bit more complex than the missive above, which errantly attributes nozzle power to the aircraft hydraulic system. Still, the result was that most of the time, shutdown resulted in one nozzle open, one closed. The F14B's GE nozzles also use a separate pump, but they use engine oil as a medium for actuation.

I've used a Warthog with a generously gifted extension and also a Virpil WarBRD. The former had too much friction which was biasing stability testing, so I prefer the latter. Neither are faithful the aircraft for a number of reasons. However, whatever you choose, it is important that you are able to rest your arm on your thigh, or a kneeboard, or some sort of rig that allows you a reference for stick movement. You don't want your arm suspended in mid air.

The reality is that no one actually did that in the fleet, and for obvious reasons, about 90% of the RIOs didn't do it with snort either... ;) The handling tweaks apply to all versions. The aircraft was easy to fly overall. Kind of humorous to watch folks act like it required superhuman effort to get off the ground. I'll say it again, faithful modeling means that you're going to be surprised by the lack of expected engine problems. Keep the throttles at mil or Zone 5 while maneuvering. Don't move them below 100 KIAS or at high alpha. It isn't rocket science.

The A is flying pretty sweet right now. Your landing grades should go up, your workload should go down. The LSO's will be happier, but don't take any grief from them. It's a solid, responsive, precise instrument platform too, easy to fly overall. Can't imagine why anyone would want FBW nonsense after sampling the feeling of control input and positive response. Lot's of tedious programming work went into getting the dynamics very close. I for one, appreciate the tenacity of the guys trying to get this right.

The "confusing" part is only that the nozzle indicators, which read from 0 to 5, don't correlate to the actual stage of burner in use. That is faithful to the way the aircraft worked. In practice, it is of little consequence, you really don't care what zone you are in, but you do need to know whether you are in full burner, which is easy to tell since the throttles are full forward, or mil. The use of after burner is otherwise natural, and you just move the throttles as necessary, as you already to in the B. Because the thrust is sort of surging and waning due to the stage phenomenon, flying formation while in the AB range didn't work well in the A. IT could be done, but required a higher workload than what you see with the GE engines. Hope this helps. The A is going to be a lot of fun.

Spiceman is correct, no feedback on the throttles for afterburner. However, the nozzle position indicators don’t correlate directly or proportionally with the gauge markings- A pointer at 1 doesn’t mean that the AB is at Zone One, instead, Zone One is actually between 1 and 2 on the indicator. Zone 2 occurs between 2 and 3 on the indicator, and as you increase throttle in the afterburner range, the indicators or the actual burner zones don’t advance linearly with throttle movement, nor do the engines stage together. They stage slightly differently, and there are little yaw bobbles as a result of the yaw differential. Heatblur has modeled this accurately. While you could feel and hear the differences in the Realjet™, in the sim, it may be confusing for awhile. The good news is that to avoid engine stalls, you’ll either be in Zone 5 or Mil when maneuvering anyway. All part of the charm of the F14A. ;)